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Wednesday, 30 September 2009

I have read with much interest and gratification the comments provoked by my article, Two Jews, posted at American Thinker the other day.

There was, however, one reader whose obstinance sets my teeth on edge. Someone called Daniel Leeson repeatedly questions the veracity of Jabotinsky's account of the Kishinev pogrom. Me, I have no reason to doubt Jabotinsky; he has never lied to me. And I knew that he was living at the time, in the spring of 1903, so I trusted that he knew of what he wrote.

Kishinev 1903: The Birth of a Century

Reconsidering the 49 Deaths That Galvanized a Generation and Changed Jewish History

By J.J. Goldberg

I beg you to read it all, but especially these two bits. The first establishes the likelihood that Jabotinsky personally encountered people who had just fled the pogrom. It is not unreasonable to assume that they told him specifics, such as the hammering of nails into babies' eyes, that they themselves had witnessed. That memory lived on in Jabotinsky, who didn't write about it until eight years later, and I dare say it should live on in all of us. Unless of course, you think you might excuse yourself by professing to doubt the truth of it.

Here is how the historian Dubnow recalled the evening in his memoirs:

It was the night of April 7, 1903. Because of Russian Easter, the newspapers had not been issued for the previous two days so that we remained without any news from the rest of the world. That night the Jewish audience assembled in the Beseda Club, to listen to the talk of a young Zionist, the Odessa “wunderkind” V. Jabotinsky [….] The young agitator had great success with his audience. In a particularly moving manner, he drew on Pinsker’s parable of the Jew as a shadow wandering through space and developed it further. As for my own impression, this one-sided treatment of our historical problem depressed me: Did he not scarcely stop short of inducing fear in our unstable Jewish youth of their own national shadow?… During the break, while pacing up and down in the neighboring room, I noticed sudden unrest in the audience: the news spread that fugitives had arrived in Odessa from nearby Kishinev and had reported of a bloody pogrom in progress there.

And secondly, there's this, which I offer in the hope that it will be a source of strength and pride for every Jew who reads it, as it is for me.

Here is a front-page report from the Forward of April 24 [1903]:

Armed with knives and machetes, the murderers broke into Jewish homes, where they began stabbing and killing, chopping off heads and stomping frail women and small children. If such a vicious, enraged mob would have attacked a Jewish town somewhere in Volin or Lithuania, thousands of Jews would have been killed in an hour’s time. But Kishinev Jewsare tough, healthy, strong as iron and fearless. When the murderous pogromists began their horrible slaughter, Jewish boys and men came running and fought like lions to protect their weaker and older brothers and sisters. Even young girls exhibited amazing heroism. They defended their honor with supernatural strength…. The Jews, however, fought with their bare hands and the murderers, armed with machetes and knives, were primed to annihilate and decimate all the Jewish townspeople.

.... So now we are back to where things stood at the end of the Bush administration, Satloff argues. But are we? The Israelis have lost confidence in the American president and discovered they can say no. The Palestinians have learned that “unacceptable” for Obama (as in “the settlement activity is unacceptable”) doesn’t mean anything. So we’re not exactly back to square one.....

Meanwhile, the Israelis have come to see that the American president is not to be relied upon and does not regard the U.S.-Israel relationship in quite the same way as the past few presidents. Friendship has been replaced by legalisms, trust has been superseded by public acts of defiance. That will have ramifications not merely for the moribund “peace process” but also for the immediate and overriding issue that Israel and its neighbors must confront–the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

On reflection, I think I prefer the present situation over the late Bush years, when Condi was berserk for the poorpalestinians but we all still clung to the belief that America was pro-Israel, that the two countries were - at least officially - still allies.

With Obama at the helm, there is less charade. His administration quite obviously favors Israel's enemies and there is no mistaking it - whether you caught on during the campaign (when he desecrated the Jewish people's holiest site) or more lately. Only 4% of Israeli Jews are left believing that he favors Israel. Unfortunately, as a new poll from the AJC shows, American Jews remain inexplicably unmoved.

... there is something... quite alarming here. If 30 percent of those Jews surveyed feel very or fairly distant from Israel, then Obama’s anti-Israel stance and his desire to put “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel may line up quite well with their own views. In a sense, these Jews don’t care much about Israel, so they aren’t much bothered if Obama doesn’t either.

The good news if there is any, is that unlike during the BushRice years, there is no "peace process." No "negotiations" are taking place. Hey, that's Change that even I can believe in. I never understood, in the first place, why anyone would sit at the same table with "people" who kill your children.

Got this from an email "forward" - hard to say where it originated. I've added links for your further edification...

Germanyjust re-elected its most pro-American leader in decades. France likewise has its most pro-American leader since WW II, as does Italy. And of course, Britainand Israel remain solidly pro-American.

If this trend continues, we may soon see a pro-American leader in the White House.

Tuesday, 29 September 2009

TRENTON — While President Obama’s political team seeks to nudge David A. Patersonout of the New York governorship, they are fully engaged in trying to get Gov. Jon S. Corzine re-elected here.

Every TV ad that Mr. Corzine puts on the air is being screened by the president’s team.

The governor’s aides are giving daily briefings to the White House.

Mr. Obama’s pollsters have taken over for Mr. Corzine’s polling team, and

White House operatives are on the ground for everything from internal strategy sessions to obscure pep rallies with Latino supporters.

Excuse me, but 60 million Americans didn't vote for The Won - and we have to pay for this? For Obama's "White House operatives" to spend their time trying to skew a gubernatorial race to their partisan advantage? You have got to be kidding.

Even Richard Cohen, one warped lefty Jew, sez it's time for Obaama to stop campaigning and start acting like a President:

Sooner or later it is going to occur to Barack Obama that he is the president of the United States. As of yet, though, he does not act that way, appearing promiscuously on television and granting interviews like the presidential candidate he no longer is. The election has been held, but the campaign goes on and on. The candidate has yet to become commander in chief.

Big Fail. But the question remains, who's gonna stop him? The Congress? The Department of Justice? Don't make me laugh.

WASHINGTON -- A tiny car company backed by former Vice President Al Gore has just gotten a $529million U.S. government loan to help build a hybrid sports car in Finland that will sell for about $89,000.

The award this week to California startup Fisker Automotive Inc. follows a $465 million government loan to Tesla Motors Inc., purveyors of a $109,000 British-built electric Roadster. Tesla is a California startup focusing on all-electric vehicles, with a number of celebrity endorsements that is backed by investors that have contributed to Democratic campaigns.

Before you fall back to sleep, you might want to think about how the electricity is generated for use in powering those hybrid and all-electric cars. Yep, you guessed it... a lot it comes from ew-dirtyCOAL.

Ronen Zvulun/Reuters A Palestinian throws a stone during riots in Jerusalem's Old City September 27, 2009. Israeli police fired stun grenades on Sunday to disperse some 150 Palestinians who hurled stones at Jews visiting a sensitive religious site in the Old City before the start of the holiest day in the Jewish calendar.

But, but but.... Just yesterday someone posted a comment here at BtB, saying that palestinians "seem to be more susceptible to new ideas" and "more humane" than Israelis.

U.S. taxpayers lent $465 million to a company that sells cars that cost more than most taxpayers earn in a year. Stupid, right? Well just you wait, it gets more so.

The cars are built, not in America, but in Britain. No jobs for us. And the clincher is that these cars run on electricity, when most electricity is generated by burning COAL, and the same government that lent them our money is meanwhile trying to bankrupt the COAL industry (and the industrial base in general).

Oh, and we also lent $529 million for cars built in Finland. Just so you'll know.